Studio Art

In our increasingly image-laden society, visual intelligence and visual literacy are paramount skills. The Studio Art program addresses this prerequisite and provides students with exciting, opportunities for creative exploration in painting, drawing, photography, video, ceramics and digital media. Students are encouraged to connect their interests, experience, and other fields of study with their studio practice. The program emphasizes the importance of linking a skillful handling of materials with an understanding of the conceptual issues at stake, and an ability to view their own work in an art historical context. It is about having the hand, eyes, brain, and heart working in unison.

Our Studio Art faculty members are professional artists who are fully engaged with their work. They represent a variety of points of view, as well as different approaches to art making. As teachers they bring their expertise and passion for their practice to the campus studios. Studio Art classes are moderate in size and one-on-one exchanges with the professors are the norm.

The Studio Art major is designed both for the student artist and the student interested in art. It teaches how to make art and an appreciation of how art is made. The department courses are conceived as an integral part of the university curriculum, and the studio major provides a solid basis for continuing work in graduate school and in art-related fields such as design, art criticism, teaching, conservation, art therapy, publishing, exhibition design, and advertising.

The minor in Studio Art offers students the opportunity to pursue a course of study in ceramics, painting, drawing, or photography, and is designed to encourage an in-depth investigation of one of those media. The course structure aims at having the student develop the artistic techniques and conceptual visual sensibility necessary for working as an artist.